NEBULA
An ecosystem that utilize IoT to learn and adapt to provide individuals with the best sleep routine, and enhance their daily mental wellbeing.
Project Brief
Nebula is a project that started in a client based studio environment. We worked in a team of 2 to solve and propose a design solution responding to a client brief.
Our brief asked us to design a product that addresses the relationship between technology and mental hygiene. With research, our team decided to focus on sleep as it is a significant factor in people’s mental wellbeing. In the end, we designed a smart sleep trainer that learns, adapts, and responds to the user’s routine and schedule to assist individuals in getting quality sleeps with the focus on young adults.
Time
2022
Tools
Figma
After Effect
Rhino
Keyshot
Type
Client based
Team
2
My Role
UI/UX Design & 3D Product Design
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Engaged in user research by conducting interviews and observations, capturing essential data.
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Developed paper prototypes, design system guidelines, and applied them to high-fidelity UI prototypes.
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Designed and meticulously modeled 3D products, CMF, bringing concepts to life and ensuring a visually appealing and functional representation of the final product.
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Led a dedicated usability testing session, focusing on evaluating the user's ability to access and comprehend product feature details.
Design Challenge
How might we assist individuals in getting the ideal sleep routine that accommodates to their schedule and behavior?
Design Approach
The complete cycle of a sleep routine.
I broke down an ideal sleep routine into three main parts - before, during, and after. To achieve a perfect sleep routine, every night, the user should begin to wrap up everything and start the sleep routine no later than 10:30 PM, which will provide them the suggested 30 minutes before bed to relax and wind down. Once bedtime hits at 11 PM, Nebula will create a quiet and dark room with a temperature set between the low to mid 60 F as research suggest for the best sleep quality. Finally, around 6:30 AM will mark the end of their 5th sleep cycle and will be the best time to wake up to prevent any morning fog or exhaustion during the day.
Learn from user, adapt for user, and guide user.
I designed Nebula to learn and use the information gathered from its user over time to adapt and provide the ideal sleep solution for our users to have a good night’s sleep. This innovation can help separate Nebula from the other sleeping assisting products, as the longer you use it, the better personalized the product will be. In the end, it can successfully help people to have a good sleep quality.
Gather, analyze, and present the best-case scenario.
The app allows Nebula to interact with information from the user’s calendar and track the person’s sleep quality overnight through the phone. With the gathered data, the app will present the best bedtime and calculate the wake-up time at the end of a sleep cycle in the morning to reduce the intensity of morning fog and avoid a day feeling dreadful and tired.
Change of environment with room brightness, projection, sounds, and paired device.
Nebula’s core concept is to utilize the change of brightness, projection, sounds, and other paired devices to create a controlled environment that can better assist our users throughout their sleep routine. The placement of the visuals is also measured to create a more comfortable viewing experience but can always be modified based on the user’s preference.
Full Video Demo
The Process
How did we get there?
Background Research
Sleep and mental health are closely connected.
I found that having sufficient sleep can help facilitate the brain’s processing of emotional information. In fact, sleeping is the time for the brain to evaluate and remember thoughts and memories, and studies have shown that the lack of sleep is especially harmful to the consolidation of positive emotional content. As a result, sleep can influence mood and emotional reactivity.
Background Research
Young adults in the US that have sleep problem:
70%
report having sleep-related issues, which in the long term can drive a person to be disconnected from the world and eventually lead to catastrophic results.
50%
report to feel sleepy during the day between three and seven days per week.
35%
report sleeping on average less than seven hours per night.
Background Research
Understand the sophisticated topic of sleep and pinpoint users’ needs and frustration.
In order to better understand our potential users, and get to know more about mental issues. I launched an online Google survey to do quantitive research about 100+ young adults.
Things people usually do to get back on track.
Meditation
Sleeping
Listen to Music
Travel
Thinking
Based on the survey findings, a significant correlation emerged between individuals' sleep patterns and their mental well-being. In light of this, my objective was to introduce techniques to assist people in achieving relaxation before bedtime, ultimately promoting improved sleep quality and establishing a healthy sleep routine.
Design Solution
Gather, connect, and learn from our users to provide the most suitable sleep solution.
Nebula is designed to learn and use the information gathered from its user over time to adapt and provide the ideal solution for our users to have a good night’s sleep. This innovation can help separate Nebula from the other sleeping assisting products as the longer you use it, the better personalized the product will be. In the end, it can successfully assist people to have a good sleep.
Persona
User Scenario
Design Prototype
Digital / Physical Design Iterations of Nebula.
Design System Exploration
The ecosystem includes an application that allows users to control connected devices such as speakers and thermostats, access sleep tracking data collected by the user’s phone, and interact with their calendar.
Low-fi Interface Prototype
According to the IA diagram, a low-fidelity interface prototype is been made, including main functions such as homepage, user profile, wallpaper switching, and brightness adjustment. The prototype was used for the first round of user testing.
Mid-fi Interface Prototype
We received some feedback about having too few insights in the sleep tracker initially. For example, it only had the graph, sleep cycle, and regularity. He also mentioned that it could be pretty confusing if he only has the insights to work with. As a result, we added more information to the graph, included more insights such as time to fall asleep, and provided suggestions for the upcoming day underneath.
Moreover, while most of them think the app has
most of the required functionality, some suggest
including a water reminder because thev have
problems drinking too much at night due to
forgetting during the day.
User Testing Key Insights
Aesthetic Iteration
We designed different aesthetic prototypes to test which style of interface users would prefer.
Design System
I combined user favorite points to create the ultimate aesthetic guideline.
I established a cohesive visual system, maintaining consistency across all design elements. Recognizing the predominantly nighttime usage, I opted to design dark theme interfaces. To imbue a contemporary aesthetic, I employed a combination of vibrant blue hues and a soft interface style, resulting in a modern and visually pleasing user experience.
High-fi Interface Prototype
Physical Design Ideation
I went to “Van Gogh Immersive Experience” to explore how project mapping works.
Then create sketches to visualize the ideas of the product shape.
Light Source Testing
Today, most projectors are strong enough to fight against other light sources such as sunlight and even LED light, which we test.
Physical Design Iterations
1. Welcoming shape, but too large with a shadow problem.
While the first one has a more welcoming cylinder shape, in order to contain all the different hardware components, the size is quite huge and heavy. Centering the projector creates consistency, but it can also cast many shadows in the room.
2. While the moving mount solve the shadow problem, it's hard to mount.
On the second model, we try out a form with sharper edges, which can make the facing side more apparent. However, similar to the first model, the size and weight were still a problem. Making the product react and move solves the shadow issue, but it makes the mount very complicated.
3. Separate the items to decrease size, but it creates a lot of mess.
One the third model, we try to separate the hardware in order to decrease the size. We were concerned about the number of required objects to create a complete experience. Separating everything and creating smaller products to place all around the room to make mounting easier, but this method brings back the shadow problem.
User Testing Key Insights
Form Exploration
Meet, discuss and refine with our users.
We constantly present our product to our users
throughout the development process, discuss the
design choices, and ask for feedback. With the
feedback, we went through different phases of form
language and eventually landed on a cylinder with
the body and edges rounded out.
Final Physical Product
User Review
We care about our users.
User Review
Think from the user's point of view
With the concept mold out, we took the concept and run it through with a number of users to receive user feedback and reviews.We talked to our ask our users about their first impression of the product and what they think about the product.
We found out that pricing is one of the crucial deciding factors for young adults when selecting products as many of them express that they think it will be beneficial to try if the price is reasonable.
The potential future development plan
We believe that Nebula will be a life-changing product that can expand into a broader demographic in the near future. Over time, Nebula plans to expand its market with new features such as expanding the coverage from just one room to the whole house, becoming adaptable to a fast-changing environment for people who need to travel a lot, and expanding beyond just sleep.